Now that the Mahora Festival is finally over, everyone's ready for some peace and quiet. But the school is in an uproar after Misora impersonates a priest.. and convinces her fellow students to spill their deepest secrets in the confessional. It seems like everyone has a secret - and all of them involve Negi!

The ReviewChao lies defeated, the Festival is over, and magic remains a secret to the world at large. You might think that Negima would take a rest from all the kung-fu fighting action after such a mammoth volume, and…well, you’d be right. After the tearful (yet immensely amusing) farewell to Chao, Negima is back to its comedy roots in full force. There’s nary a thrown fist or roundhouse kick to be seen outside of a slapstick routine, which means those that prefer the light-hearted school life aspect of the series will be grinning big with a big ol’ bag of grins.

Perhaps the stress of keeping such a tight reign on the story has finally caught up with Akamatsu, but within this collection of chapters is some of the funniest and most original material of the series so far. The high points are not only amazingly high, but come at a breakneck pace. Whether it’s Chao revealing her secret weapon (the Chao Family Tree, which lists Negi’s future wife and children), Al and Evangeline’s kinetic feuding, Misora posing as the church priest in the confessional, Akira’s chapter with almost no spoken dialog, or Negi’s “confession” to Asuna, it’s likely there’s something in this volume that will be filed into your “Top Negima Moments” category.

Rather than slowing down after the Mahora Festival ended, Negima seems to have merely traded one type of excellence for another. I’m beginning to wonder whether the series has truly maintained a practically unprecedented streak of superior quality, or if I’ve come down with a deadly illness and the past few volumes I’ve read have merely been fever dreams created by a mind giving refuge from the slow, crushing irrefutability of excruciating death. I’ve taken tests, but until the lab results come back I am forced to believe the former. Those worried the previous arc would leave Ken Akamatsu a dried, lifeless husk may rest easy; those others concerned he might actually explode before the series ends may increase their fidgeting.